Trip Coach: March 13, 2007

Chena Hot Springs in winter. Sitting in the outdoor hot spring when its at least -20 and the Northern Lights dancing about the sky. It's just wonderful. --Sonja Rossow, Alexandria, Va. I would love to have the Mayan ruins of Chichen-Itza all to myself for an afternoon. To be able to explore these wonderful ruins, without the crowds and with just the sounds of the jungle around you, would be amazing. --Teresa Collins, Unicoi, Tenn. Malibu rum factory (and the adjoining beach), Barbados. --David Jackman, Summerville, S.C. The Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie viewing Da Vinci's Last Supper. --Mary Yahr, West Bend, Wis. The Louvre. --Siri Norlin, Denver, Colo. Molokai Ranch and Lodge is a perfect balance: camping, wonderful food, staff and the company of wild turkeys/wild life. --Candace Lee Gallerani, Los Angeles, Calif. Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) and the Swiss Riviera. --Casey Evans, Burlington, Wash. The Temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt at sunset. --Cheryl Hannah, Aspen, Colo. The Charles Bridge, Prague. --Diane Seltzer-Charchat, Fresh Meadows, N.Y. Cedar Point, Sandusky Ohio. --Shawna Wood, Los Angeles, Calif. The Forbidden City, Beijing, China. --Patricia Quinones, St. Louis, Mo. A Beach House, Key West, FL. --Elaine Collins, Alameda, Calif. The Bathroom. The family always barges in & even our parrot (Cockatoo) walks in & tries to bite my toes. --Ron Kolstedt, Brevard, N.C. I may live in paradise, but zen for me is the Fox Run x-country ski trail at Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe Vt. on a clear winter's day. --Karin Wisniewski, St. John, USVI Mollorca, Spain ...The Caverns. --Brandi Rhone, Glen Burnie, Md. Windsor Castle. --Kristen Hattlestad, Corvallis, Mont. Kensington Palace (Orangery included, but the chef can stay). --Julie Moskal, Glen Ellyn, Ill. St. Peter's Cathedral. --Jennifer Sharpe, Orlando, Fla. The Grand Canyon. --Julie Bostrom, Bend, Ore. St. Patrick's Cathedral & Park, Dublin, IE. --Taryn McL, Washington, D.C. Pompeii. --Courtney Flanagan, New York, N.Y. Alyeska Resort near the end of March. --Sarah Edwards, Anchorage, Alaska Yosemite in the late spring, when the snow has not quite melted from the peaks. If you are lucky you can still find days when the park is not full and the trails almost deserted. --Dori Egan, Pleasant Hill, Calif. Montreux, Switzerland. --Juliet Violette, Las Vegas, Nev. Venice Canals. --Brooke Johnson, Mill Valley, Calif.

Editor Erik Torkells ...General Public, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 1985 Art Director Amy Helin ...Poison and Britny Fox, Kansas Coliseum, 1988 Managing Editor Marilyn Holstein ...Genesis, Syracuse War Memorial, 1978 Picture Editor Amy Lundeen ...INXS, Madison Square Garden, 1991 Senior Editor Laurie Kuntz ...Arlo Guthrie, Carnegie Hall, 1989 Senior Editor Brad Tuttle ...Motley Crüe and Whitesnake, Brendan Byrne Arena, 1987 Assistant Managing Editor Suzy Walrath ...Grateful Dead, The Pyramids, Egypt, 1978 Associate Editor Laura MacNeil ...Paul Simon, Merriweather Post Pavilion, 1991 Associate Art Director Sarah Irick ...New Kids on the Block, Kansas Coliseum, 1991 Editorial Production Manager Lauren Feuer ...New Kids on the Block and Tiffany, Nassau Coliseum, 1989 Associate Picture Editor Lauren Keenan ...The Beach Boys, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1991 Associate Picture Editor Rebecca Simpson ...HFStival, RFK Stadium, 1993 Copy Editor Thomas Berger ...Billy Joel, Norfolk Scope, 1984 Assistant Editor David LaHuta ...Billy Joel, Madison Square Garden, 1993 Assistant Editor Naomi Lindt ...Sinead O'Connor, Star Lake Amphitheatre, 1990 Assistant Editor Lindsey Ramsey ...Garth Brooks, Kemper Arena, 1996 Editorial Assistant Sarah McCormick ...Guns N' Roses, RFK Stadium, 1992 Art Assistant Jacky Carter ...Reba McEntire, Sandstone Amphitheater, 1993 Intern Josh May ...Lenny Kravitz, The Los Angeles Forum, 1998 Intern Silvia Usle ...The Anti-Nowhere League, Sala Imperio, Madrid, 1985 General Manager Online Michelle Preli ...Van Halen, Louisville Fair Grounds, 1981 Managing Editor Online Suzanne McElfresh ...Deep Purple, Phoenix Civic Plaza, 1973 Senior Editor Online Sean O'Neill ...Genesis, Veterans Stadium, 1987 Editor Online Kate Appleton ...Dave Matthews Band, Madison Square Garden, 1998 Producer Online Ruthie Kaposi ...Art Garfunkel, Seaside Park Bandshell, Coney Island, 1998 Audience Development Director Online Laura M. Smith ...Grateful Dead, Madison Square Garden, 1990

It goes almost without saying that the exotic notion is a Western dream, initially a European hankering for the East that became more generalized geographically, and came to include an idealized North America, and then the Pacific islands and North Africa, the Near East, and the more sinuous races living among fragrant blossoms in South America. The exotic dream, not always outlandish, is a dream of something we lack, something we crave. It may be the naked islander, or the childlike odalisque squinting from her sofa with her hands behind her head, or else a glimpse of palm trees, since the palm tree is the very emblem of the exotic. It is also the immediately recognizable charm of the unfamiliar, and so the Maori elder, the Famous Fighting Chief, Rewi Maniapoto, counts as much as the dancing girl. But always the exotic is elsewhere. The word itself implies distance, as far from the world of home and scheming as Prospero's island of magic and exile is from Milan. It is the persuasive power of travelers' tales, the record of enormous journeys of quest and discovery; the heroism of these returned travelers is the glorious note of enchantment in their stories. It seems as natural to dream of the exotic as to dream at all. We are born with an impulse to wonder and, eventually, to yearn for the world before the Fall in which we may be the solitary Crusoe, the guiltless adventurer, the princeling with a jeweled sword. Because the dream's perfection suggests that it is unattainable, man searches for proof that it is not. And whatever fantasy one has reveals one's peculiar hunger. It might be very simple: the sunny island paradise. Or it might be complex: the oriental kingdom of silks and plumes. However ornate or imposing the architecture, the monuments, the palaces, they are the background; in the foreground of the exotic are people. Flaubert, almost a caricature of the orientalist, with his stereotype of Araby, went to Egypt in 1849 and described the markets, the pyramids, the temples, and the Sphinx. The Sphinx cast its spell on him ("fixes us with a terrifying stare"), but shortly afterward the spell was broken ("Its eyes still seem full of life; the left side is stained by bird-droppings"). It was the people -- specifically the women -- who captivated him. Flaubert's mission was to meet a famous courtesan named Kuchuk Hanem and watch her perform the Dance of the Bee. When some months later he met her in Esna, he had much less to say about the great temple there (six lines) than the object of his desire: "Kuchuk Hanem is a tall, splendid creature, lighter in color than an Arab...When she bends, her flesh ripples into bronze ridges. Her eyes are dark and enormous, her eyebrows black, her nostrils open and wide; heavy shoulders, full, apple-shaped breasts," and so forth for almost a whole page -- her coiffure, her jewelry, her teeth, her tattoo, even her knee caps. Shortly after meeting Kuchuk, he made love to her, which he recounted in three more purple pages, in which he included a closely observed description of the Dance of the Bee. Kuchuk performed naked, while the musicians were blindfolded, and the next day Flaubert made love to her again. So much for sightseeing in Esna. Flaubert's friend and traveling companion, Maxime du Camp, had brought a camera with him to Egypt. He was among the first to photograph scenes of Egypt, though he only managed to take one picture of the camera-shy Flaubert. Much of the lure of what we know of the exotic springs from photographs. In the beginning, photography was the proof that the exotic was not the confidence trick of the traveling painters or the sketchers on board the ships of discovery. What is it about a photograph that is so convincing? Perhaps, however fudged or posed, photographs possess an accidental truthfulness, resulting from the undiscriminating lens rather than the selective human eye. In some cases they may be distortions of the exotic dream, rougher bruised-looking, or plainly grubby; but many are like the dream made flesh and have an uncanny exactitude. They are representations of a complete world that is utterly different from that inhabited by people in whose dreams this exoticism was prefigured. This is the world in a dewdrop, trembling on a very odd leaf. Photographs of the exotic enlarge the meaning of the word and go on to furnish our dreams with imagery of greater undreamed-of magnificence. Each such picture is an excitement, an invitation to the exotic and seems to repeat in its strangeness that this is a world that awaits further discovery. It holds out the promise (which is also the promise of pornography, a genre on which some of these images overlap) that you can enter this picture. Because it is a photograph it is an affirmation of truth, even though we know that photographs are capable of trickery and cheating. After its clumsy beginnings in the 1820s and 1830s photography developed swiftly and the photograph as we know it dates from the middle of the 19th century. The camera intensified the lure of the exotic and made it seem attainable. The first postal card -- just a card for a message -- was issued in Austria in 1869. By the end of the century this artifact had evolved into the picture postcard that was briskly used in the way it is now, as a hello, an I'm-all-right signal, and frequently a boast. Because it can so easily be read by a stranger, the message on a postcard seldom contains anything intimate or important, nothing crucial, never a secret, nothing you wouldn't want the postman to see. Why do travelers send postcards? To get a rise out of the people at home -- to shock them, tempt them, one-up them. To deceive some people; to make them envious. To confirm their stereotype of The Other, to emphasize distance in a journey. Busy people send them. They are like very slow telegrams. They are a traveler's expedient, demonstrating economy of effort. The choice of card tells you something about the people who send them; and perhaps something of those who receive them. The apotheosis of picture postcards occurred at a time when the lure of the exotic was at a peak. They were sent in great numbers and variety at the height of European colonialism, in the decades before the First World War, when Britain, France and Germany ruled half the earth. The imperial powers exploited their colonies without improving them much, putting in railways and roads only where they made it easier to export a product. Most of the indigenous people were untouched by these efforts. So the postcards here represent the pretensions of a period of idealized innocence, when few outsiders traveled to these parts of the world; when it was possible to dazzle the people at home with such images. It was not a golden age but seemed to be. And it was distant, less a world than a universe of almost inaccessible places. Scribbled on the back of one postcard here, from Noumea on New Caledonia is a reference to "Notre long voyage de 45 jours." Reprinted by arrangement with Thames & Hudson, from Exotic Postcards: The Lure of Distant Lands by Alan Beukers. Copyright (c) 2007. Order a copy online through amazon.com or thamesandhudsonusa.com.  

Traveling these days can feel like a journey with a hundred forks in the toll road. You're constantly faced with the same choice: Should I pay more to get better service? It's not just the usual big choices--room vs. suite, coach vs. business class, inside cabin vs. balcony. The industry is making travelers pay on the micro level. And as I've written before, the baseline service (the way you used to be treated without paying extra) is only getting worse. So now you have to decide: Pay for curbside check-in, or suffer the long line inside the terminal? Pay to join a registered-traveler program, or bide your time in the airport security line? Pay to join the business-class club, or wait in the crowded, noisy terminal? Pay for more legroom (as Patricia Ove of Albuquerque, N.M., does--see tip 12, in 20 Tips), or spend some quality time getting to know your knees better? Do you pay to join the car-rental company's premium club, or take the chance that the line won't be an hour long? Do you pay the cruise line for preferred boarding and exclusive restaurants, or wait in the lines at the port and at the buffet? I've also written a lot about how travel can bring people together. All this distinguishing the haves from the have-nots, however, has the opposite effect. We're always being reminded of our status, which--unless you choose to pay and pay and pay--is never as high as it could be. I remember when I was flying business class once, and we had boarded first. In that awkward moment (for everyone) when the coach passengers were filing through the business-class cabin, a young boy asked his father, "Why are these people up here?" "They're first class," replied the father. "What are we?" "Second class." If I had a son, that's not a phrase I'd feel very good about saying to him. One of the reasons people like JetBlue and Southwest so much, it seems to me, is that there's a single cabin, and everyone gets the same treatment. If the flight attendants are nicer to you, it's because they like you. And that's certainly one reason I find our new back page, The Budget Travel Upgrade, so endearing. We make someone's trip better simply because we can. So if you're heading off somewhere, fill out the tiny form at BudgetTravelOnline.com. You might just find that you end up getting a better experience than you bargained for.